Age of Reason

On 19th April 2014 the needle was dropped into the groove of internationally celebrated Record Store Day for another dose of limited edition vinyl and musical merriment!

Again I was asked by the impassioned overlord of Secret 7 Mr. Kevin King to contribute a one-off record sleeve to be sold on the big day.

The charity this year was War Child and an almighty £41,500 was raised for the cause. This was great news and it brought the total Secret 7 contribution to over £105,000.

I chose to illustrate 'Age of Reason' (track above) for Brummy metal newcomers Black Sabbath and went down a more graphic-vector route, hoping to offer something different for the lads!

I also screen-printed the cover, to give it that va-va voom. Below is the final design and then the process.

Thank you to Kevin King for having me along for the journey again and on the off-chance that Ozzy, Tony or Geezer saw the artwork, I hope you liked it. Oh and if you were the person who bought it, thanks to you too.

Screen Print Workshop at WYPW

Graham 'Army of Cats' Pilling and myself have been screen-printing since 2005 and 2006 respectively. In fact, we first bonded over our love for the medium and Graham was the printing Overlord who showed me the righteous path and I have never once looked back.

Since 2011, we have kindly been asked back on a twice yearly basis by the West Yorkshire Print Workshop to run a screen-printing workshop based around the printed poster.

Every session has been highly sought after and sold out way in advance - must have something to do with the charming hosts... And every workshop has been a great deal of fun for myself and Graham, as well as all the students who graduate (with honours) into the wide world of screen-printing.

Here is a quick overview from this years event, which took place on the schizophrenic weather weekend of the 8th and 9th of February.

Graham doing a spot of quality control.

The first day of the workshop gives learners the skills and know-how of how to print. And so every student is given the opportunity to screen-print their own certificate (shown below) as designed by Graham.

The second day is dedicated to the printing of each student's designs and everybody gets the opportunity to print their own 2-colour design to take home. Don't worry, we're here to help throughout this process...

There will no doubt be another workshop this year, although it hasn't been announced yet. If you think this is something you'd fancy - and let's face it, of course it is - then feel free to drop West Yorkshire Print Worskhop a line at 01924 497646 or email @wypw.org and they'll be happy to help you out.